All that matters in pre season is players getting to be match fit and used to new tactics and new team mates...and avoiding injuries
And we're doing great in that regard Solanke and Takai picked up knocks in training, while Bentancur picked up a bug
I think also this is a new manager looking in detail at his stock of players. Perhaps more thourally than managers have in the past. That's good, isn't it?
Darren Bent once scored about 20 goals one pre-season and tore it up. We went on to start with 2 points from the first 8 games. Perspective needed in pre-season!
I didn't watch either game, but the lineups don't make much sense, to me. Missing a number of players, of course, but the balance is off. We've clearly got a lot of work to do on transfers. Striker and left-back seem like a real issue. If Richarlison's on the way out, then I don't see why Scarlett's not playing. Perhaps not in the Wycombe match, but playing Tel there isn't the solution.
The interesting thing is the setups suggested two tactical approaches: against Wycombe the attacks were very right-sided with Porro pushing up while Davies tucked in, but against Luton it was a little more fluid
I think Daren Bent use to stand by the goalie reading his comics until the ball reached him and he'd put it in the net.Lazy buggar but it seemed to work!?
Asian tour squad confirmed George Abbott Brandon Austin Rodrigo Bentancur Lucas Bergvall Yves Bissouma Jun'ai Byfield Kevin Danso Ben Davies Jamie Donley Archie Gray Luca Gunter Brennan Johnson Antonin Kinsky Mohammed Kudus Will Lankshear James Maddison Wilson Odobert Pedro Porro Richarlison Cristian Romero Pape Matar Sarr Dominic Solanke Heung-Min Son Djed Spence Mathys Tel Micky van de Ven Guglielmo Vicario Luka Vuskovic Yang Min-Hyeok The interesting part is the suffix: Dejan Kulusevski, Destiny Udogie, Kota Takai, Radu Dragusin, Bryan Gil and and Manor Solomon are staying behind for treatment/rehabilitation - while Mikey Moore, Alfie Devine and Dane Scarlett are staying behind to explore potential loan moves
